Rumor Central: Bleeding Cool reports DC actually interested in making money - rumored response to complaints of gender inequity

Late Edit:  I went and saw Captain America this evening, and so I missed this until, oh... its about 1:00 AM on Saturday.  But the last post to the DCU blog, The Source, was just a straight up mea culpa and pledge to improve how DC deals with its female characters, creators and all of its fans.


Absolutely remarkable.

Original Post is below:

One of the things that DC said it would try to do under the New 52 was become more agile in delivering content.  If something wasn't working or selling, it wouldn't have a long shelf life.  Likewise, they would be willing to try new things.

DCE certainly can't have liked that the major story around the company coming out of CCI hasn't been the New 52 (of course, that was old news by Day 1 of the Con).  Instead, its been the gender equity issue in comics and how at every panel fans (well, maybe fan) would stand up and ask why more women weren't working on their books in the relaunch.  A bit of math DID demonstrate the the number of women dipped from 12% of the DC creative pool to 1%.  which... yikes.


I pondered this issue a few days back, and nobody read the damn column, but (a) its not just DC, superhero comics in general have an issue with cultivating female talent.  (b)  Of the women in comics, I'm not sure how many women are working in anything remotely in the style DC employs in its books as a writer or artist.  I also suggested that readers actually pay for their comics to get their vote in (no more bittorrenting, kids) and that talking about women getting equal representation can only happen if that same passionate audience picks up a pencil or keyboard and moves from fandom to creators.  But more than anything, I think DC is leaving money on the table by not taking the influx of women into comics (and superhero comics) seriously.

Well, I couldn't help but notice that on DC's blog yesterday that they spotlighted an unknown character called The Horsewoman in the upcoming Paul Cornell series, Demon Knights (a sort of swords'n'sorcery medieval JLA).  But more than that, they also randomly showed some Jill Thompson work from the DCU booth. 

Well, apparently DC may have listened to the irate Batgirl.  Bleeding Cool is reporting that DC is revving up more female characters for the spotlight and reaching out to folks in their rolodex of the lady-persuasion. 

What I think?  One of two things happened either separately or in tandem.

1)  I think Dan Didio could have been in a whole heap of trouble on Monday morning.  Not the call you want from the President of DCE when you walk in the office, asking "what the hell is wrong with you?"

2)  Someone out there realized "we have extremely passionate fans we aren't serving.  They've told us exactly what to try.  Let us do this thing."  In a moment of clarity, this may even have been Dan Didio.  I don't know. 

Wow.  DC actually seems serious about this whole "let's not let the company fail" idea.

I, for one, am happy to hear DC is going to dig a bit deeper.  The key now will be for all those young people to actually BUY those comics when they arrive, and for DC to not put flowers or hearts or something on the cover to indicate "these are those comics you asked for, ladies".

I really hope Bleeding Cool is right on this one.  It'd be a nice ending (beginning?) to the story.